Can the Politicians Heed the Lessons of Hurricane Harvey?

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

"Will this tragedy teach us the lessons that so many politicians and impulsive voters have been denying for so long?"
The first lesson is that America must come home: we must end the Empire of Militarism and of playing the role of policeman of the planet. Both of these habitual roles are backfiring and depleting trillions of taxpayer dollars that could be better used toward rebuilding our country’s infrastructure, strengthening our catastrophe-response networks and preparing for the coming megastorms like Hurricane Harvey.

To read more:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/08/30/can-politicians-heed-lessons-hurricane-harvey

[Warpy]

1. Poiliticians, no. They're too busy raising money for reelection

What you have to hope is that their libertarianism and invisible hand fairies don't get in the way of city planners and other unelected officials who might hold their jobs long term and who do know what lessons need to be learned from this.

[guillaumeb]

2. Money is speech.

Missiles keep the peace.

Less taxes means more revenue.

Mr. Orwell would not be surprised.

[hatrack]

3. The first Lesson of Hurricane Harvey is that this is just beginning, and will get much worse . . .

You think Mike Pence and Ted Cruz and your local Chamber of Commerce want to hear that? To hear that things have already changed, permanently, and that they're going to continue to change, in most cases for the worse?

You think they want to hear that? Fuck NO they don't want to hear that, and neither do most people. The preservation of illusions will be far, far more important than absorbing what Mother Nature has to teach us, and the preservation of illusions is how politicians, in almost all cases, get elected.


The second Lesson of Hurricane Harvey is that we will learn nothing from Hurricane Harvey. We will learn nothing because, "Ow! This hurts!"

[guillaumeb]

4. But unless the US abandons its long held dreams of empire,

and uses the billions currently wasted in an attempt to fulfil these dreams to rebuild the country, the US will become a classic third world nation where a tiny elite rule over the majority with the aid of a militarized police force.